Banking Giant Citigroup Taps Coinbase for Crypto Expansion

Citigroup is expanding its crypto push through a deeper partnership with Coinbase, tapping the exchange’s infrastructure to help corporate clients accept stablecoin payments as…

Banking behemoth Citigroup has deepened its collaboration with Coinbase, according to a recent report by the Wall Street Journal.

Citi will be using Coinbase’s infrastructure for accepting stablecoin payments from customers.

Importantly, Citi and Coinbase are not starting from scratch. The two companies first announced a broader digital-asset payments collaboration in October 2025.

They initially focused on the infrastructure that lets institutional users move between traditional currencies and digital assets. They also said they would explore alternative fiat-to-stablecoin conversion.

Specific details remain limited. Neither the WSJ report nor Citi has so far specified which stablecoins or blockchain networks will be supported.

Citi recently laid out four major pillars for its digital-asset business.

These include expanding Citi Token Services, improving interoperability, developing crypto custody and tokenization services, and providing banking infrastructure to virtual-asset service providers.

Citi said its goal was to act as a bridge between fiat currencies, stablecoins and other tokens.

In August, the banking giant unveiled its Custody+ platform and confirmed plans to launch custody for native digital assets before the end of 2026, starting with Bitcoin.

Citi said the crypto service would sit alongside its conventional custody products, Citi has also moved deeper into tokenized securities.

In June, it launched Digital Depositary Receipts representing shares in private companies. The tokens use regulated blockchain infrastructure operated by SIX, while Citi acts as both issuer and custodian.

More recently, Citi became the first U.S. bank to process live native transactions on Swift’s blockchain-based ledger.